> First, my qualifier.  I am a hobbyist, not a
> producer.

So am I.

> you have not yet
> convinced me that sugar-based honey is definably
> different from other-based honey.

The difference seems huge to me: the difference
between a first quality product and a looks-like-honey
product.
I can easely differenciate tastes between
"sugar-honey" and honeys in a blind test in spite of
the 25% sugar-honey proportion without tasting impact
R. Darington refered.

Honeys flavours, I would say parfums in my language,
mostly come from aromatic acids in nectar. Sugar honey
is just sweet. I produce my own honey only for a rare
taste (I mean uncommon on the market of blended honeys
and so-called floral honeys). Here is most of the
difference for me.


> 2.  Sugar is not dangerous to eat (excluding obesity
> risk which is not the point of the discussion).

For once, the debate deals with honeys quality instead
of honey safety. Let us stick with honey quality, thus
with taste although those two separated concepts have
been merged by major food industries.

> 4. Trace or insignificant amounts of sugar
does not automatically spoil the whole batch.

Imagine a famous vine maker saying " Trace or
insignificant amounts of apple juice
does not automatically spoil the whole batch of my
vine". Would you pay top price for such product ? You
may like it, taste is more a question of culture, I
would say of "taste education", but you probably would
not accept to pay the same price as for a famous great
vine, would you ?

> "Pure" anything is a myth.  We can strive for
> purity.  We can achieve 99.99...% of purity.  But we
> can never achieve a guarantee of "purity".

Anectodic incidents are not a justification for
lowering working methodologies.
In the spring, as part of my quality program, I
extract any "winter honey" I can, just at the
beginning of dandelion blooming, in order to obtain
the best floral honey I can. The "winter honey" is
used at home for cakes, tea, jams, etc. I can easely
make the difference although I let some honey to my
bees for wintering. I use only 5 to 10 kg of dry sugar
(in solution of course) per hive. I can easely compare
those two products, and yes, honey sugar tastes like
some (bad or medium) honey I eated in the past. It
aslo granulates the same way. It just mean the honey I
bought from a local beekeeper at that time was a low
quality product.

Hervé
Le Rucher d'Émélys
www.emelys.com
Canada - Québec


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